Patrick Guinness
Patrick Guinness (MPhil, University of Sydney, PhD, Australian National University) helped develop an indigenous language and culture program in a school serving the Maututu Nakanai of West New Britain. He was an agricultural field officer in the island’s initial years of oil palm development. He has been a university lecturer and researcher for over four decades, first in Indonesia, and then in Australia, where he convened the Development Studies program at the Australian National University for many years and taught and supervised students in international development, urban anthropology, comparative religion and indigenous worldviews.
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4205-4405
Wild Partners »
Indigenous Worlds and Industrial Giants in Papua New Guinea
Authored by: Patrick Guinness
Publication date: 2025
Wild Partners traces the history of the Maututu Nakanai of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. According to a Maututu ontology, or worldview, they are surrounded by a forest filled with threatening wild forces. It is believed that outstanding men and women pioneer ways to engage these forces to bring benefit to their village community. In recent times, the Maututu have had to engage with human outsiders, including government officers, church administrators, industrial managers and migrant settlers, who like their mythological counterparts have threatened to disrupt the established world.
This study captures Maututu approaches to the threats and challenges they have faced over the last hundred years—the proclamation of the Christian world, the dislocation of the Pacific war, the development programs of the colonial and independent governments and the industrial expansion of oil palm. The challenges have at times threatened the very essence of their being through the destruction of forests, loss of land, competition for schooling and health care, marginalisation within the oil palm industry and the emergence of ‘big shot’ individuals who ignore community obligations.
Maututu have adapted to these threats, becoming successful oil palm producers and prominent professionals throughout Papua New Guinea while seeking to rejuvenate Christianity, protect forest and marine environments and build partnerships that benefit their village communities. Central to these efforts has been partnership with outside forces.
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